This invention relates to a ball throwing machine used for practicing batting and catching balls, and particularly it relates to a support structure for such ball throwing machine.
To make it possible to pitch balls at high speed, some of such ball throwing machines have heretofore been constructed in the following manner.
A pipe serving as a frame extends in the ball throwing direction. A pair of front rotary wheels are disposed with said pipe held therebetween, while a pair of rear rotary wheels are disposed behind said front rotary wheels and with said pipe held therebetween. These front and rear rotary wheels are operatively connected together by V-belt wrapping connector type operatively connecting means. Further, the front and rear ends of said pipe are supported by brackets on a support block.
And when a ball is fed into said pipe at its rear end, the ball is nipped between the outer peripheral surfaces of said pair of rear rotary wheels and thereby pitched forward and then said ball is nipped between the outer peripheral surfaces of said pair of front rotary wheels and accelerated and pitched forward.
In the arrangement described above, the front and rear ends of the pipe are supported by brackets on a support block; the provision of brackets at two places makes the ball throwing machine heavier by the corresponding amount.
This type of ball throwing machine is equipped with a pair of front rotary wheels and a pair of rear rotary wheels, tending to increase the overall size of the machine. Besides this, the provision of respective brackets at the front and rear ends of the pipe makes the size of the ball throwing machine extremely large.
Further, in the above arrangement, since the V-belt wrapping connector type operatively connecting means is exposed to the outside, the V-belts can get caught by something else during transport and are thereby easily damaged.
For these reasons, said ball throwing machine is difficult to handle during transport.